"Legendairy", "The Dairy Fairies", "The Calci Chums", "Calcium Crew", "The Udder Team" or "Milkshakes" - are just a small flavour of the imaginative team names submitted by secondary school students for the inaugural NDC Milk it! Advertising Awards.

The organisers have announced that 100 teams of teenagers representing 69 secondary schools from 21 counties have now made it through the first phase of short-listing in the NDC Milk It! Awards.

The secondary school students are working in teams of up to six students, setting up their own ‘advertising agency’ to research, design and plan an advertising campaign aimed at encouraging their teenage peers to meet their dietary recommended levels of five dairy portions a day. The 100 teams have been short-listed from the initial registration by 325 teachers in 274 schools in all 26 counties.

The NDC introduced the new awards to secondary schools in September 2010 to support an initiative to start expanding the School Milk and Dairy Programme into secondary schools (www.schoolmilk.ie). Secondary school students were invited to experience the creativity, challenges and thrills of working in an advertising agency - whilst providing teachers with an initiative which has cross-curricular linkage potential. Students were provided with a brief and guidelines; and encouraged to take on advertising roles such as Designers, Copywriters, Creative Directors, Research Directors, Media Directors and Project Managers.

The 100 short listed teams will now activate their campaigns in their schools in early Spring and send an expanded submission to the judges. Based on this, the judges will then select 12 finalist teams - 6 in the senior category and 6 in the junior category.

The twelve finalist teams will attend the national finals in mid-April to be held in Dublin's Aviva Stadium function rooms, where they will ‘pitch’ their campaigns to a panel of expert judges. The judging panel includes Professor Damien McLoughlin of UCD Smurfit School; Richard Curran, Deputy Editor of the Sunday Business Post and presenter of Dragons’ Den; Shay Keany, CEO of ZenithOptimedia; Brian Swords, President of the Institute of Advertising Practitioners of Ireland; Dietitian Paula Mee; and Michael O'Leary, National Co-ordinator, Transition Year Programme.

Each member of the Overall Winning team will win a fantastic Apple iPad and an NDC Milk It trophy. Finalists will receive One4All giftcards.

Further information regarding the NDC Milk It! Awards and the list of 100 short-listed teams is available at www.milkitawards.ie

For further information on the NDC return to our Home Page or telephone 01-290 2451